Of Sighs and Slender Fingertips
by Snitwick
Summary: Post time skip. Anko and Temari's relationship is a temporary story of beautiful hips and lips, of sighs and slender fingertips, of need and desire and space all woven into a single thread. AnkoTemari.


Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine.

* * *

Anko and Temari have been officially seeing each other for six months and having sex for eight. They would have been in together months ago, except the Kazekage made Temari a diplomat and now she splits her time between Konoha and Suna. Now whenever she's around, she's tied up in meetings all day and rarely gets out in time to meet Anko for dinner.

* * *

Temari had just gotten in that morning. She had spent the entire day in meetings and upon being let out of the last one at ten o'clock, she wasted no time in arriving at Anko's one-room apartment.

When Anko answered the door and saw who was standing there, she let her girlfriend in. They shed their clothes, dumping them wherever they landed on the floor, and fell in a tangle onto Anko's bed. Within minutes, the sheets had ridden up underneath Temari's body, bunching between her shoulders and wrinkling where her feet caused depressions in the old mattress. The lights were off--a mutual decision--and the curtain was drawn over the window, blocking out the sliver of moon that was visible between the stars.

Anko's head rested on Temari's flat stomach and her eyes were half-open in the darkness. She liked it that way. She liked being able to see Temari's face changing, shifting, growing beneath the touch of her hand. She liked seeing her lips part and her chest heave, thrusting Anko's head up with each new breath. She liked timing the movement of her fingers to the second, controlling when Temari's breath would catch in her throat, when she would reach that ragged pinnacle, when her body would give one last powerful thrust of those beautiful hips before falling back against the bed in sweet defeat.

And after Temari had been driven to her breaking point and beyond, after she had experienced those three seconds of everything and nothing... when she was lying on the bed, sweaty and exhausted ... after all that, Anko would wipe her fingers on the sheets and stand up. She would walk to the window and sit at the desk -- all without turning the lights on.

Temari didn't understand this habit of Anko's, but she had heard enough stories (and told quite a few herself) to know that it wasn't the strangest sexual practice, among either ninja or civilians. She found it ... unusual... that Anko thought nothing of seeking her own sexual release, but Temari didn't question it. She was a ninja in a world where the political climate was volatile at best and sister to the Kazekage; she knew all too well not to try to fix something that wasn't broken. Questioning Anko's behavior would only fuck things up and over the last eight months Temari had grown attached to both their relationship and the sex, with or without Anko's quirks.

Nevertheless, sometimes Temari found herself wondering what Anko thought about after they had sex. Those moments puzzled her. To the outside world, Anko was vivacious and cheeky, hot-headed and strong-willed, but those moments were so quiet, so lonely, so instilled with a type of impermeable sadness, that it had taken Temari by surprise the first time she had seen it.

What was she thinking beneath all that dark hair of hers? What went on between those grey eyes? What great secret was Temari shut out of? Did Anko feel guilty for sleeping with Temari. If she did, was it because she was younger than her or because she was a woman? Was she praying for forgiveness for indulging in her sins, or was she praying for whatever they had going to continue for as long as possible? Did she feel ashamed of her body because of something bad that had happened in the past, or did she simply like to use those moments of solitude to gather her thoughts at the desk in the dark?

Whenever Temari wondered what was going on in Anko's pretty head, her thoughts always returned to where she had started; they always led back to the beginning in a never-ending circle of guilt and sex. That was why when she found herself retracing familiar ground, she would roll over and hug herself until she fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, Anko would crawl back into bed and burrow her cold fingers and toes into the cracks between Temari's limbs, warming them against her body. Then she would lay her head down on the pillow next to Temari's loose frizzy blond hair and fall asleep next to the girl, fitting her body around that of Temari's, but being careful not to impinge upon her space.

Sometimes it felt as if that was all their relationship was composed of -- being careful not to step on toes, to turn a blind eye to the oddities that each possessed, to respect each other's need for space, while all the time remaining close enough to touch and taste and feel, but not to rip or tear or hurt -- but like Temari, Anko knew better than to question it. Like Temari, she looked beyond the surface and saw their relationship for what it was: a temporary story of beautiful hips and lips, of sighs and slender fingertips, of need and desire and sex and space all woven into a single thread.

* * *

Somewhere between the beginning and the end, Anko had fallen in love with the gentle curve of Temari's naked shoulder blade disappearing seamlessly into her back, with the frizzy blond hair that threatened to sneak into her mouth while they slept, with the way she averted her eyes in respect, and with the way that she assumed nothing and gave everything. And while their relationship might cause heads to turn and whispers to spring up behind their backs, it worked for them, and that was enough to make everything worth it.

_Fin._


End file.
